We understand that student focus tends to waver at this time of the year—so we asked our Director of Education, Betty Morris, to scour the Teachers Media International resource library for her top nine video recommendations that you can show in the classroom.

Using Archived FilmAlthough this resource is more for teachers, it demonstrates how archived film, like Rescued by Rover, can be used in Language Arts lessons to explore the structure of narrative, character, and setting.

Lily & ErmineSpark student writing with this animated video prompt. The story is told without dialogue, giving teachers a chance to encourage students to write imaginatively and descriptively.

Algebra: What’s the pattern? See if your students can work out the algebraic pattern after watching this lesson starter based around how many people can sit at a birthday party table. A good prompt to delve into patterning, both visual and numerical.

Micro-Organisms: Making Bread and Cheese Teach students how micro-organisms can be beneficial in food production, with this short documentary. This is a great complement to the food shows that are even popular with younger kids.

For secondary students, Betty has selected these four engaging and relevant video resources:

Managing Water in Kenya In this short video, students will learn how the need for water dominates a family in Kenya’s lives. This is a great prompt for global citizenship and environmental awareness.

Asperger’s Syndrome In this video, a seemingly well-behaved and well-performing school student, describes the emotional distress he felt as his Asperger’s syndrome caused him to struggle socially at school. This video will help students to become aware of issues around inclusion.

Of course, this is just a sample of the videos available from the Teachers Media International archive—register today to access more than 3,500 video resources, including more than 400 specifically geared for student viewing.

The chaos of the season caught up with us yesterday and we missed our Wednesday post for our 12 Days of Teaching series— but we hope today’s theme will make up for it, or at least make your mouth water.

In this eighth instalment, we look at 8 Christmas Food Traditions From Around the World. With so many countries to choose from, we opted to look in-house. Here are eight traditions enjoyed by members of the very diverse Teachers Media International team.

Ukraine

This country’s best known tradition is Christmas Eve, where a feast of 12 meatless dishes is prepared and served. The 12 traditional dishes start with Kutya, a wheatberry dish which includes poppyseed and honey, and is eaten hot or cold. This is followed by soup (often borsht), pickled herrings, pyrohy (dumplings), holubtsi (cabbage rolls), nalysnyki (cheese crepes) pan fried fish, pyrizhky (cabbage buns), mushrooms and gravy, pampushki (potato dumplings), kolach ( sweet bread) and a variety of desserts – prune filled donuts, poppyseed roll, and Ukrainian scuffles. There are other dishes that can be included in this traditional Christmas Eve meal as well. Looking to incorporate a little Ukraine in your holiday? Try this recipe for holubtsi.

Scotland, England and Ireland

The traditional Christmas pudding popular in Scotland, England and Ireland was made from meat and wine. But in recent years, the meat has been replaced with sweets and other ingredients. The recipe may have changed, but its importance hasn’t. The dish is usually made five weeks before Christmas and takes on a variety of forms.

France

The main Christmas meal in France is called Reveillon, and is eaten on Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning after attending midnight mass. The meal is finished off with an elaborate variety of desserts—often up to 13 different ones!—including the traditional Buche de Noel, or traditional sponge yule log. Get the recipe here.

Kenya

Christmas in Kenya is a time for social gatherings and food. As visitors make their rounds, food is everywhere. And if you’re lucky enough to be invited for Christmas dinner, chances are you’ll enjoy either fish or the traditional meal of nyama choma. This dish is made with beef or the goat, which is considered a delicacy. Vegetables, fruit and chapattis accompany the meal, often served with chutney. Not sure what a chapattis is? Here’s the recipe.

German

The German Christmas dinner is a giant production featuring duck, goose, rabbit or roast, and is accompanied by traditional delicacies such as apple and sausage stuffing, red cabbage, and potato dumplings. Dessert typically includes Christmas Stollen, considered one of the best Christmas pastries in the world. The most famous Stollen, which can be found at many supermarkets, is the Dresdner Stollen—a tasty fruit and nut dessert guaranteed to change your mind about the term “fruitcake.” For the advanced baker, you can find the recipe here.

Italian

Natale, or Christmas, is one of Italy’s most beloved holidays, where each region celebrates three meals with their own line-up of traditional dishes. Christmas Eve dinner is traditionally a light meal with no meat and a lot of seafood. Along with an abundance of fish, Italians celebrate this meal with meatless pasta and antipasti. But meat makes its return for Christmas day lunch, considered the most important of the three meals. The feast begins with antipasto, followed by a first course of pasta and the main meat event—chicken, sausages, or braised beef. The festivities continue for Santa Stefano’s lunch on December 26. Thinking of a meatless dinner? This Fried Baccala looks delicious.

Hanukkah

Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days when the Maccabees rededicated the holy Temple in Jerusalem after their victory over the Syrian-Greeks. Because of this, fried foods like potato pancakes (latkas or livivot) and doughnuts are traditional Hanukkah treats because they are cooked in oil and remind us of the miracle of the holiday. And brisket is a traditional main course. Check out this link for perfect latkes.

Jamaica

In Jamaica, Christmas Eve is also called “Grand Market” and is an exciting time, especially for children. During the day, people dress up in their best clothes to attend the festival activities and shop for food. The celebration can last until morning, but not everyone gets to stay out and party—the Christmas Day meal is usually prepared on Christmas Eve and includes fresh fruits, sorrel and rum punch, and meat such as chicken, curry goat, or stewed oxtail. Christmas Day breakfast features ackee and saltfish, breadfruit, fried plantains, boiled bananas, and fruit juice. This curry goat recipe will help you bring a little Jamaican Christmas to your home.

For a look at other holiday feast traditions from around the world, take a look at this YouTube video.

See you tomorrow where we will showcase nine great educational videos from the Teachers Media International library that you can show your students.

During this often chaotic time of year, it’s important to slow down and focus on some of the great things about the festive season, such as holiday décor.

Whether you’re planning to “Deck the Classroom” or simply provide students with crafts they can give as gifts, our 12 Days of Teaching post today has seven Christmas decoration ideas that are simple, environmentally friendly, and fun.

STAR ORNAMENT: All you’ll need is paper, straw, beads, coloured ribbon and pipe cleaners to make these eye-catching star ornaments. A variety of bead choices will allow students to easily individualise their projects.

RECYCLED CARDBOARD TREE: Rather than chop down a tree, why not use one that’s already been recycled? You’ll be amazed at how a couple of cardboard boxes can create a stunning holiday tree canvas.

DRIFTWOOD TREE: Another variation of a recycled tree is this stunning driftwood craft. Step by step instructions are offered here.

CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATION: Dozens of great ideas on this website, including these easy-to-make (and inexpensive) Christmas tree decorations.

WRAPPING PAPER: We wrap up this list (see what we did there?) with environmentally-friendly ideas for giftwrap. Consider fabric, comic strips, newspaper, wallpapers, calendars and more!

Keeping with the theme of promoting an environmentally-friendly season, take a look at this article, which includes great tips for “going green” this Christmas.

Concerned you’ll have trouble motivating the artistic side of your students? Teachers Media International has you covered! This video resource speaks to how to inspire creativity—even for students who are generally not excited about arts and crafts projects.

Share some of your class creations with us in the comments. We’d love to see the holiday décor projects happening in classrooms around the world.

Learning disabilities manifest themselves in countless ways. This can provide unique challenges for teachers of a mixed ability class. But as technology marches on, so do opportunities for academic success.

The term “assistive technology” has traditionally been applied to electronic devices, or computer hardware and software. But new AT tools and applications are now available on the internet, making them more accessible for educators to use in the classroom.

These tools are designed to help students with many types of disabilities—from cognitive problems to physical impairment—and give kids the opportunity to use their abilities to work around their challenges.

While there are dozens of effective assistant technology devices on the market, we’ve chosen six to round out the second week of our 12 Days of Teaching blog series. (If you’ve missed posts one through four in our 12 Days of Teaching series, you can start with 1 Project Based Learning Activity here.

Alternative keyboards: Special overlays allow for students to customize the appearance and function of a standard keyboard. Students who have trouble typing can program specific functions, such as grouping keys together, to aid comprehension.

Audio Books: Recorded books allow visually impaired students to listen and track text. Publications are available in a variety of download options, and some are free for schools.

Personal FM system: A personally FM listening systems translates a speaker’s voice directly to the user’s ear. This tool is now very common and is being used in regular classrooms to help learning for all students.

Speech recognition: Speech recognition programs work in conjunction with a word processor and can assist learners whose oral language ability is better than his writing skills.

Talking calculator: A talking calculator has a built-in speech synthesizer that reads aloud each number, symbol, or operation key a user presses.

Graphic organisers: Graphic organisers and outlining programs help users who have trouble organising and outlining information as they begin a new writing project.

To see some of these—and other—assistive technology devices in action, register for the Teachers Media International professional development service, which gives you access to more than 3,500 best-practice videos, articles, and learning packs.

What other tools would you recommend? Share in the comments!

Check back Monday for 7 Christmas decoration ideas you can do with your class. Have a great weekend!

‘Tis the season for chaos. Regardless of how well you’ve planned your lessons, the festive season can be somewhat distracting. For today’s 12 Days of Teaching post, we take a look at five organisational classroom set-ups you can use throughout the year.

Organising a classroom that works for both teacher and students can be a daunting task. But putting structures and routines in place allows a class to run more smoothly—allowing quality learning to take place.

Here, we provide five tips for organizing your learners and their learning space.

Create a safe place to learn. Students must feel safe to take risks, and not be afraid of making mistakes. Your classroom environment should facilitate a foundation for building meaningful, trusting relationships.

Incorporate technology. Regardless of the hardware in your classroom, it should be easily accessible to individual, pairs, or groups of students. For a look at an “organised for learning” classroom of the future, check out this video. Notice how students are working individually, in groups, and also as a whole class? They’re still using physical materials, but in a very different way.

Personalise learning where possible. Some students thrive in large groups, while others will share more if the group is smaller. Pay attention to student learning styles, including those who fit on the special needs spectrum, to allow all learners to flourish.

Here, a school has tailored its classroom layouts, resources and lesson activities to help students with dyslexia learn. Can you adapt any of these ideas in your learning space?

Pay attention to physical layout. How a classroom is laid out reflects your teaching style—and you. If you want students to collaborate in small groups, organise students around tables or clusters of desks. Consider a u-shape desk configuration for whole group discussions, or learning stations for self-paced curriculum.

Get creative. Set aside any preconceived notions of how you think a classroom should look. Visit museums, libraries and other schools for ideas, or research business, universities and flip through home and garden magazines to see how working spaces are created and organised. You may be surprised to find gems you can apply in your own working environment. Brainstorming with students may also net some ideas, and will allow students to feel as though the classroom truly belongs to everyone.

Excited to learn more? In this informative article from Scholastic, real teachers share inspiration and creative tips that will help turn your classroom into a unique learning space. Remember, it’s all about building relationships and creating an engaging environment.

We kick off the second week of our “12 Days of Teaching” blog series with four cool science experiments guaranteed to promote questions and engage your students.

According to Eric Brunsell, Assistant Professor of Science Education at the University of Wisconsin, there are five key features to a good inquiry-based science experiment.

The learner must engage in scientifically-oriented questions

The learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions

The learner formulates explanations from evidence

The learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge

The learner communicates and justifies explanations

From this, we understand that science activities must focus on real world ideas—activities should be prompted from open-ended questions where multiple answers are possible. They should spark questions, and motivate students to probe further.

With this in mind, take a look at the four cool science experiments listed below, curated from the Teachers Media International (www.teachers-media.com) library. Not only are they sensational, they’re also designed to engage student learning and provoke questions.

Introduce young scientists to the subject of “changing materials” with these great experiments that use common materials such as sand and snow.

For more great science experiments, register for Teachers Media International, an online professional learning resources that gives you access to more than 3,500 best practice videos, articles, learning packs, and much more. Our “Lite” service is FREE!

Missed the days one through three of our “12 Days of Teaching” blog series? You can check out the archives, starting with Day 1, here.

This week, we kicked off our 12 Days of Teaching series, which will feature three weekly posts for the next month that offer strategies for keeping you and your students focused throughout what is often a highly distracting time of year.

Mathematics often gets a bad reputation. You hardly ever hear people say, “I was never good at reading” but “I was terrible at maths” is a common phrase, especially from your students’ parents. Bringing them into the fold is actually our first tip.

Engage Parents

Curriculum is ever-changing. It’s important to communicate to parents what students are being taught in maths, to give them a better understanding of how they can help their kids at home. Workshops or parent meetings are a great way to help parents understand new strategies or mathematical terms. Consider hosting a school math fair for students and parents. When parents understand what is being taught, they’re more likely to engage.

Combat “Maths phobia”

A fear of maths is a real thing for students. Creating an environment in which students feel comfortable to take risks, express themselves, ask questions, and work together can go a long way towards building trusting relationships that can take some of the fear out of learning, particularly where “maths phobia” lurks.

Ask Meaningful Questions

Be sure to ask meaningful and purposeful questions that require students to be thoughtful when responding. Model aloud how to think about a question, respond, and clarify thoughts. You can use evidence of student thinking to assess if they are understanding the content and how they are progressing.

On Monday we kicked off our 12 Days of Teaching series, which will feature three weekly posts for the next month that offer strategies for keeping you and your students focused throughout what is often a highly distracting time of year.

Loosely based on the 12 Days of Christmas, we began with 1 Project Based Learning. While not all of the posts will be centered on the festive season today we offer 2 Christmas-inspired writing prompts.

As students begin crafting their holiday wish lists, we thought it might be a good time for them to reflect on the past year. On which side of Santa’s list would they land if they were judged on their activities over the last few months? With that in mind, consider these two writing prompts:

Think about a time when you did something that might be construed as “naughty”—played a prank on your sister? Stayed up late? Skipped out on that homework assignment? Write a letter to Santa providing a reason for your “slip up” and then write a persuasive argument as to why he should forgive you. For extra marks brainstorm ideas on how you can make up for being naughty with some ways of being nice.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in twinkling lights and cinnamon smells at this time of year, but this season is also about sharing, caring, and thinking of others. Consider a time in the past year when someone did something nice for you—maybe it was that morning your parents made your favourite blueberry pancakes, or when your teacher helped you understand that difficult algebra equation. Have you experienced kindness from a stranger? Write a letter to Santa telling him about the experience, and why this person should absolutely end up on his “Nice” list.

Of course, these writing prompts can be adapted for a more generic message, helping students to understand the importance of recognising their actions throughout the year, not only when they think it will make an impact on old Saint Nick.

If you’re in the United States, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! Check back with us on Friday for the third installment of our 12 Days of Teaching blog series.

As we move into the holiday season, we thought it would be fun to focus on some themed education tips and teaching strategies, loosely following the 12 Days of Christmas—but with a Teachers Media International twist.

For the next 12 blogs posts—each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—we’ll offer up 12 cool ideas, beginning with today’s post: One project-based learning activity. The posts may not make for good holiday song lyrics, but we can guarantee a fresh perspective on some new, or new to you, teaching strategies.

But first, a refresher on the difference between projects, and project-based learning.

Projects can be completed at home while project-based learning requires teacher guidance and team collaboration. Project-based learning demands some “need to knows” on the part of the students and teachers; whereas projects can be outlined in detail on a single piece of paper. Projects are often recycled year after year, whereby project-based learning is timely, complex, and takes time to prepare and implement.

Sound daunting? It isn’t—particularly when you consider that project-based learning provides an excellent opportunity for you to keep students focused on learning, even as the distractions of the upcoming holiday season threaten to take over your classroom. If students are engaged in a long-term meaningful project, they are less likely to be distracted by eggnog and twinkling lights.

The key is to start now.

This Edutopia article outlines some wonderful cross-curricular ideas for project-based learning activities, many of which tie into the holiday season, or can be completed without mention of Christmas at all. As a provider of professional development for educators across the globe, we’re especially drawn to the projects that teach about different cultures, customs, and learning practices.

However, if you’re keen to try a Christmas-themed project that will facilitate collaboration and teacher input, take a look at this Teachers Media International video in which students are tasked with creating a festive newsletter.

We hope the ideas here have inspired a project-based learning activity in your classroom. Check back with us on Wednesday when we offer two fun writing prompts to keep our 12 Days of Teaching going. As always, we welcome your comments and feedback.

Can we make Christmas trees in art class? Should the school play be a nativity scene? Is it okay to do a Secret Santa among staff members? These questions and many others are commonplace now as classrooms around the world become much more diverse.

In this Teachers Media International video, a group of teachers debate whether the standard nativity play is still appropriate in a school that is making a concerted effort to become more inclusive.

Interesting perspectives. But this is just one example of a much more complicated issue.

Besides Christmas, many different events—spiritual, religious, and tradition-based—are celebrated in different ways during these times; Ramadan, Hannukkah, Kwanzaa, and Pancha Ganapati, to name a few. It isn’t feasible to plan for each of these diverse holidays, but there are ways you can celebrate diversity and inclusiveness by using this time of year to build understanding and awareness of others.

Learn about other religious or holiday celebrations. Consider creating a calendar that notes each of them, and where possible, plan small activities, such as a craft or writing prompt, that helps to acknowledge these special days.

Encourage students to share their celebrations with the class through stories, songs, decorations, or foods.

Plan each activity after answering the following question: what is our educational purpose?

Hold classroom discussions that explore why some people celebrate differently, at different times, and in different ways. These discussions should also be held at the staff level.

What tips for inclusivity would you offer? How does your school handle the December holiday dilemma? Share in the comments!